He fetched a piece of paper for Martinelli, who frowned at it for a full minute before starting to write, muttering it as he went: “I, Timothy John Martinelli, Vow to keep secret what Peter—what’s your middle name?”
“William.”
“—what Peter William Blackwell tells me today, January 25, 2021, as well as all later discussions we have about the same topics, unless and until he authorizes me otherwise of his own accord, unforced by me or anyone else. If I hear about it later in an official fashion at work, I will not be required to continue to keep the information secret, but Iwill still tell no one that I first heard it from Peter William Blackwell. I further Vow that I am telling the complete and absolute truth when I say I am not spying on him.”
Martinelli stared at the words for a long moment, nodded and said, “All right, that should be safe.”
“Safe?” Peter said, knowing full well what he meant, hoping to draw him out.
“You ever read fairy tales about genies and how they’ll twist a wish into shapes the wisher never intended? Vows are like that. You have to be extremely careful how you phrase them.”
Why ohwhydid he never ask his deputy what his dissertation was about?
He let Martinelli set up the interlocking circles made of demarcation stones and listened to his instructions, not wanting to be blazingly obvious that he’d been down this road before. Martinelli stepped into one circle and he went into the other, trying to ignore the disconcerting déjà vu. He’d stood here with Beatrix in practically this very spot. His stomach churned.
“Wait,” he said, backing up. “It’s one thing to study something, but it’s a very different matter todoit, and I don’t think you can truly appreciate the?—”
“This is not my first rodeo.” Martinelli raised his eyebrows. “And I don’t think it’s yours, either. Is it?”
Peter stepped back into the circle. “Go on, then.”
“Ic gehate,” Martinelli intoned, the two leaves in his hand going up in smoke. The contract glowed. He tossed thepomegranate pips into his mouth, the paper glowed even more brightly, and it was over.
“Now I need a drink,” Martinelli said. “And after that, please tell me why the devil you quit.”
CHAPTER 22
Peter told him. Not everything—not that he’d taken the actual weapon, or that the copy he’d left would be less effective as time wore on, or what he’d done to Beatrix. But he told Martinelli how the Army was getting those explosions. Why stop at pigs and primates when you could drain the life force out of humans? Why stop with a weapon that could kill thousands when you could make it kill tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands instead?
Martinelli listened without interrupting, other than muttered groans and quiet expletives. When the story was done, he said nothing for a while, head in his hands. Then he muttered, “I’m going to need another drink. In fact, bring me the whole bottle.”
Peter returned with the rest of the scotch and handed it to Martinelli. He poured wine for himself.
“How did you know I’m not getting paid here?” he asked, setting the bottle on the side table between them.
“What?” Martinelli focused and frowned. “Oh! Mercer said something about that. Right after he came here to chew you out last year.”
Ah. Right. Peter had forgotten that Mercer had asked him point blank and he’d told the man. That felt like a very long time ago.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. I wanted to tell you from the start, but I’m clearly not supposed to know it and I was afraid I couldn’t trust you. Then you began coming around all the time, and God, I needed a friend, but I thought you were a spy. I mean, you’re married—you have better things to do with your weekends than pal around with me.”
Martinelli gave a hollow laugh. “Mae left me.”
Peter almost dropped his glass. “What?”
“She moved back with her mother last month.” He downed the rest of his scotch and poured wine into his tumbler. “We can’t have kids. She said she didn’t know what the point was, a marriage with no kids. What’s thepoint?Iloveyou, isn’t that enough of a point?” Martinelli closed his eyes. “But it wasn’t for her. Everyone on our street has children, all the couples we see socially, all the wives she visits …” He trailed off.
“Salt in the wound,” Peter murmured.
Martinelli sighed.
Peter struggled for something to say and finally settled on, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Distract me.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“Lord love a duck, no.”
